1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscopic image processing apparatus that processes an endoscopic image from an image pickup device, and an endoscope system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, endoscopes have been widely used in diagnosis, treatment using treatment instruments and the like in a medical field. An electronic endoscope apparatus has come into widespread use which is provided with an image pickup device such as a charge coupled device (CCD) at a distal end of an endoscope insertion portion, and projects an observation image picked up with use of the CCD on a television monitor by a video processor.
The video processor is provided with a drive circuit, so that a drive signal from the drive circuit is transmitted to the CCD at an endoscope distal end to drive the CCD. In the drive circuits like this, some drive circuits supply drive signals with synchronizing signals (VD) superimposed on the drive signals to CCDs. The CCDs output video signals of each pixel synchronously with the synchronizing signals.
A synchronizing signal (VD) is superimposed on the video signal from a CCD. The video processor extracts the synchronizing signal included in the video signal from the CCD, and uses the synchronizing signal in the following video processing. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 4-156072 discloses a head detachable camera in which a phase shift is compensated irrespective of a delay of the transmission path from the CCD to the video processor.
Various endoscopes having different kinds of transmission paths connecting CCDs and the video processor, different kinds of CCDs, and the like can be connected to the video processor.